


Everywhere 17

by Syd_of_the_Funny_Hat



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Post-The Reichenbach Fall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-08
Updated: 2015-02-08
Packaged: 2018-03-11 00:40:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3309257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syd_of_the_Funny_Hat/pseuds/Syd_of_the_Funny_Hat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yes, I know, 'blog entry as a letter to dead man, oh how dot-dot-dot' and then whatever mess of adjectives and adverbs you feel like adding, based on whether you're with me in the I Believe In Sherlock camp or in the Richard Brook Is Real one or even the I'll Say Anything If It Stirs Up A Shitstorm one. As Sherlock might <strike>say</strike> have said, you are under absolutely no obligation to read the maunderings of a demobbed army doctor...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everywhere 17

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [17 on a Pink Circle](https://archiveofourown.org/works/734762) by [thetreesgrowodd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetreesgrowodd/pseuds/thetreesgrowodd). 



> In the end notes of 17 in a Pink Circle, thetreesgrowodd said, "If anyone wants to write John's reply, go for it."
> 
> So I did. Probably be a good thing if you read 17 in a Pink Circle first. Go ahead, I'll wait...
> 
> Not Brit-picked, but I don't think I got anything egregiously wrong--please let me know if I did, and I'll fix it. :)

Dear Sherlock--

Yes, I know, 'blog entry as a letter to dead man, oh how dot-dot-dot' and then whatever mess of adjectives and adverbs you feel like adding, based on whether you're with me in the I Believe In Sherlock camp or in the Richard Brook Is Real one or even the I'll Say Anything If It Stirs Up A Shitstorm one. As Sherlock might ~~say~~ have said, you are under absolutely no obligation to read the maunderings of a demobbed army doctor with an occasional hand tremor and a psychosomatic limp. Or as I might, and in fact do, say, you don't like it? There's plenty of other stuff to read on the Internet, so piss off elsewhere.

As I was saying...

Dear Sherlock,

I still can't believe you're dead. It's been...hell, I lose track, whether it's been thirty seconds or a million years. Wasn't it just yesterday Mike called out to me in the park, told me to think about a flatshare to afford London, and when I asked who'd want _me_ for a flatmate--a busted-up former everything with a raging case of PTSD and nightmares that made me wish I'd never made it home--said I was the second person to say that to him that day.

And then it was crime scenes and running through alleys and over rooftops, you with that map of the city in your head, codes in books and getting attacked and kidnapped and wrapped up nice and cozy in a coat lined with semtex by a psychopath with delusions of grandeur and hell-hounds on the moors and watching the world crumble and you...why did you make me watch you jump? God, Sherlock, I still don't understand that. But then, I'd called you a machine, hadn't I? All brain and no heart. When I knew better. I heard it in your voice, that last phone call.

I knew better. I'm sorry. So, so sorry.

I don't live on Baker Street anymore. I go see Mrs. Hudson (and yes, I know you still check my blog, Mrs. H, I have the early shift at the clinic tomorrow and I'll be round for tea after if that's convenient ;) ), but...I just couldn't stay. Too many memories, crowding around me as I climbed the 17 steps to the flat, burying me a little more every day. Working at the clinic didn't help, and it was ages before Greg and I could talk about anything without your...ghost...rising up between us, so no cases for plain old John Watson. I could never do what you ~~do~~ did anyway, but a little mental challenge...on second thought, probably more than a bit not good, that line of thought.

She says your brother still pays the rent, that no one's been in there since I moved out. The thought of all your things collecting dust makes me sad, a bit, I got some of it packed before I couldn't face it any longer. Something else to be sorry for. But then I think, what would anyone do with the leftovers of your experiments on tobacco ash and harpooned pigs? (My god, the look on your face when you came in, dripping blood all over the landing and complaining--COMPLAINING!--that you'd had to take the Tube because no cabbie would pick you up...how long did you try for a cab, how many passed you by, three? Five? Or more, eleven-thirteen-seventeen-nineteen, before you gave up? Stubborn git.) Still, makes me feel less like I abandoned her, so tip of the hat to Mycroft, even if it makes him out to be just as much a sentimentalist as the rest of us poor sods toiling through our day to days.

I'm writing this at a coffee shop near the clinic. It's more interesting than my flat, anyway, and sometimes I like having a different view of the world than my own walls. No bad memories there, maybe, but not much of anything else. I have Mike round for coffee now and then, and he says it barely looks lived in.

At that, it's an improvement over the bedsit I was living in when I met you. Onward and upward, maybe?

Anyway, coffee shop. Not one of those chain places, either, a proper shop that even roasts its own beans and serves 17 or 18 specially blended teas, which is nice when the thought of another cup of coffee is enough to make my stomach acid boil. Decent food, better than decent, and little pastries, too, not as good as Mrs. H makes, but they'll do. :) Been here often enough that they're starting to know me, half the time they have my coffee ready when I reach the counter, and it's...homey. My favorite seat is an overstuffed wing chair in a blue-violet tweed. Some other bloke beat me to it, today, but there's tomorrow, and the next day.

Great place for people watching, too. Lots of students using too much caffeine to make up for too much partying or too little sleep, some stay-at-home mums (and a few dads) stopping for a cuppa with friends, people on break or at lunch or dinner (depending on my shifts, I see the place at all hours). Like that bloke in my chair. Just this once, let me try to deduce someone for you. Not that you're here to care, or to tell me all the ways I'll undoubtedly get it wrong. But it's a way to pass the time, and it might have amused you once upon a time. So, Deductions about the Bloke in My Chair.

He's younger than I am--not as many lines on his face (what I can see of it, more on that in a bit) for one thing. Dresses like a student, faded jeans and a dark green hoodie with the hood pulled mostly up, well, the chair's closer to the door today and it's a bit chilly so I can't blame him for wanting to stay warm. The jeans are worn, frayed about the hems, but the hoodie looks almost new; I won't guess about whether he bought it for himself or if it was a gift, nothing stands out either way. The trainers...those have definitely have seen better days, and if we get some rain out of these clouds he's liable to have wet feet. Hair is dark ginger, close to auburn, short and spiked to within an inch of its life--he may use more product than you did, maybe he skimps on the shoes so he can afford that seventeen-pounds-a-tin pomade I always bypass. He's got a full beard, not long, neatly trimmed, more ginger than his hair. He's wearing glasses, metallic frames in a blue halfway between slate and navy. Haven't been able to get a look at his eyes.

Taken all together, it's interesting. It's as if he gets more mature, more professional, from the ground up. As if he's aspiring to better things. Something else, now that I think on it: there was a bike outside, expensive when it was new but nearly as worn as his shoes, and there are dark splashes on the outside of his hems, and an oily black stripe near the hem on the inside of one leg that you might see after a trouser leg rubs against a bicycle chain. And does he...yes, there's what looks like a messenger bag tucked onto the seat beside him. Laptop newer than mine but not too new...all right then. A student, but an older one, working on an advanced degree, on a scholarship (newish laptop) but working as a messenger to supplement his funds (the bag and his hair). Something not in the sciences--you do chemistry long enough, for example, it shows on your hands. Not the computer sciences or engineering, either, or the laptop would likely need to be newer, I'd think. Which would seem to leave us with business, or something in the arts.

I don't see all this as quickly as you always did, so I'm having to sneak a glance now and then. Wouldn't want him to think I was trying to pull him by just staring at him. Anyway, business or the arts, mate, which is it? Leaning toward business. Most of the art students I ran into at uni, or that I've seen since, seem to be more overtly artsy than this chap--stickers on their laptops, clothing either very boho or all black, and there's him with green hoodie. So, business. Managing his money choices, working to give himself more choices...finance.

And here's where, if you were here, you'd tell me everything I saw but got wrong, all the important bits I didn't see at all, and let fly with 'You _see_ but you do not **observe** , John, obviously she's a sociology student gathering data for her thesis on entrenched sexism, anyone with eyes can see the beard's a fake, a good one I'll grant you but still a fake, and you paid no attention at all to her wrists as she typed, honestly, I despair UTTERLY of the human condition, are you through with your coffee yet, Molly texted me about a fascinating new corpse, with seventeen penetrating but non-fatal wounds and yet the victim is dead...' and off we'd go again.

I brought the skull with me. And the hat. I don't have a mantel, but I do have a bit of a bookshelf that came with the flat, previous tenant couldn't be bothered to take it along, and I've got the skull on the shelf with my mystery books--wearing the hat--because it makes me smile to think about what you'd say.

I miss you. I think I see you a dozen times a day, but it's always someone else, because you're...Mrs. H, what say we take a little drive before tea? There's a place I haven't visited in too long.

I'll see you tomorrow, Sherlock, in a way. But you won't see me.

John

o0o o0o o0o

John closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, clicks the button to post the blog entry. Then he shuts down his laptop and puts it in his bag. He closes his eyes, smiling a little as he savors the last few sips of his coffee--really, this place was a terrific find--and then he walks out, thinking he should have spent less time on the blog because now he's out of time to go to Tesco and deciding what kind of takeaway he feels like. As he goes, his sleeve brushes against the blue tweed armchair.

Sherlock, reading John's newest entry, fights the urge to grasp that sleeve, take John's hand and go for a run over the rooftops of his beloved London. He scratches at the ginger beard which, although a very good fake, is still a fake, and itchy, and he glances over at his quarry, whom he followed back from Dresden last night and who must never return there, and won't.

But for now, Sherlock reads, and every 17 lights a candle in the darkness of his mind.


End file.
